Regenerative Medicine: PRP and Stem Cell Injections

Regenerative Medicine: PRP and Stem Cell Injections

Every single day, our medical knowledge advances. And with those advances, we are learning how our body has the ability to heal itself from an injury.

However, as we get older our bodies aren’t able to replenish our old cells with newer ones at the same rate it used to. So, we harvest cells from bone marrow or tell them from the blood.

When doctors place those cells and the point of an injury or pain, they help to start the healing process in that area. But this is just one of the many kinds of regenerative medicine doctors are learning more about today.

Read on to learn more about PRP stem cell therapy and how it works.

Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP)

Most people know that blood contains red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. However, it is also an environment full of growth factors and regenerative proteins. These proteins allow delivering healing messages to an injured area.

Cells secrete proteins, called cytokines. These cytokines interact and communicate with those messages in the process.

Your doctor creates PRP from your blood and injects it into the injured area.

How is PRP Used?

PRP is usually used either as a single injection or as a part of a plan for post-surgery recovery. It helps to speed up the recovery and healing process.

There are risks associated with PRP, the same as with any other injection, but the fact that it addresses the cause of pain it becomes a better option.

It is a safe, non-surgical procedure that gets the body to heal itself from acute and chronic pain.

How Does It Work?

In order for muscles and tendons to remain flexible and strong after an injury, they need to be able to repair themselves in layers of fibers that are uniquely organized. They do this with the help of blood that carries healing platelets, growth factors, and proteins to the injury.

You start to experience long-term pain when that damage doesn’t heal the right way, and this is usually caused by a lack of proper blood flow to the area. So, instead of collagen forming multiple layers of new fibers, your injury is forming scar tissue instead.

Scar tissue is painful because it doesn’t have the small capillaries to carry blood.

PRP works because the medical specialist will use a probe to find the spot where your scar tissue is, allowing the doctor to place the PRP in the exact place it’s needed. PRP spurs on the tissue surrounding the injury to get back to work with the repair process, allowing the body to heal naturally.

The recovery time varies from person to person, but patients usually see pain relief and increased mobility within 4 to 6 weeks. This will continue for up to a year.

Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cell therapy is a little different than PRP, but it works the same. Stem cell therapy is more advanced and requires the use of proteins harvested from bone marrow.

What are Stem Cells?

Stem cells are amazing. Regular cells can divide and create new, exact copies of themselves. But stem cells can divide and create a copy of themselves or any other kind of cell.

This means that when doctors place stem cells into an injured area, they will divide and create new muscle cells.

Bone Marrow Harvest Procedure

Doctors collect bone marrow stem cells through a needle that they place in the iliac crest or hip bone. They do administer a local anesthesia to limit your pain. However, there is a pressure associated with this procedure.

Stem cells decline as we get older, so your doctor may give you a pill or an injection to stimulate those cells to multiply before your harvest.

The Benefits of PRP Stem Cell Therapy

There are many benefits of using regenerative medicine. We’ll list them for you here.

Reduce Need for Surgery

When you choose regenerative treatments, you reduce the necessity for surgery. This is because you are treating the injured area before it goes any further. The goal of this therapy isn’t to mask the pain with a pain medication, it’s to heal the area with your body’s cells.

Faster Healing

Regenerative therapy helps many people heal quickly from a painful injury and return to full activity. When you are dealing with injuries in your back, knee, or tendons, you want that pain gone fast.

Other Benefits

There are a number of other benefits that regenerative therapy offers. We’ll list a few of them for you here.

  • No medication
  • No hospital stay
  • Return to work quickly
  • Safe and natural
  • No risk of communicable diseases

These are just some of the many different positive things that come from regenerative therapy. Talk to your doctor to learn more.

Risks

Amazingly, there are no more risks in regenerative therapy than there are in any other kind of injection. The bone marrow harvest does have some risk associated with it, but only because of the local anesthesia that doctors administer to the site to avoid pain.

The Future of Medicine

Because PRP stem cell therapy is so new, there is still so much to learn from it. The amazing benefits we reap from it today can only be expected to double in the future. And if you are experiencing pain from an injury, you should talk to your doctor today about the possibility of PRP therapy or stem cell injections.

For more information about this miraculous procedure and the benefits of stem cells, visit us today!

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